Haven 6 Read online

  Eri balked, un­will­ing to get up from the couch or leave their con­ver­sa­tion. So many ques­tions lingered.

  As if on cue, the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized and Litus stood in the door­way in his navy of­ficer’s uni­form. Aquaria walked over and gave him a peck on his cheek. “Wel­come home, hon.”

  He no­ticed Eri on the couch. “I didn’t know we had com­pany.”

  “Eri stopped by to see our new place.” Aquaria dis­ap­peared into the kit­chen.

  Eri stood up, plastic crink­ling, hop­ing the cy­ber-green didn’t melt onto her white uni­form. “I like the daises on the wall­screen.” She didn’t men­tion the couch.

  Litus set his work­bag down by the portal. “That was Aquaria’s idea, right, dear?”

  Aquaria shouted back a re­sponse between gurgles of the food con­geal­izer. “I thought it would brighten up the room.”

  “Are you stay­ing for din­ner?” Litus turned to Eri, his face somber and un­yield­ing. Eri wondered what thoughts swam be­hind his un­waver­ing blue gaze. He seemed to size her up, cal­cu­lat­ing her in­ner feel­ings.

  “No, I have a lot of work to do.” Not want­ing to burn in his gaze any longer, she ducked her head into the kit­chen. “Bye, Aquaria.”

  “Good luck, Eri. Re­mem­ber what we talked about.” Aquaria whipped her head around from the coun­ter­top pre­par­a­tion to give her a steady stare.

  “I’ll re­mem­ber.”

  As Eri passed by Litus, a faint smile brightened his hand­some face. “See you to­mor­row.”

  “To­mor­row?” Was Litus com­ing by to learn Span­ish?

  “The first train­ing ses­sion for Delta Slip.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Aquaria’s new in­form­a­tion had blind­sided her so com­pletely, she’d for­got­ten. “Of course.”

  “Look­ing for­ward to it, I hope. It’s an honor to be chosen for the team.”

  Eri traced the doorframe with her pointer fin­ger, col­lect­ing dust on her fin­ger­nail.

  An honor. Yeah, right.

  …

  The laser-train­ing arena sat in a bay near the lib­rary. Eri had walked down the cor­ridor count­less times to re­search old texts and run her hands over real books from Old Earth. She’d never had a reason to stop for tar­get prac­tice in the arena. She al­most passed the portal and waltzed dir­ectly into the lib­rary out of habit.

  The con­ver­sa­tion with Aquaria from yes­ter­day still swam in her head. Did the com­mander plan on co­hab­it­a­tion or an­ni­hil­a­tion?

  If it was the lat­ter, the com­mander asked her to rep­res­ent a civil­iz­a­tion that would ul­ti­mately spell the nat­ives’ doom. She was more than a del­eg­ate. She was a spy, a bringer of death. Shriv­el­ing in­side, Eri wondered if she pos­sessed such cool cal­lous­ness. A thou­sand doubts clouded her mind. This mis­sion struck a dis­son­ant chord in­side her. Even though it came dir­ectly from the com­mander, it wasn’t right.

  Thatched tree huts were hardly the handi­work of a mech­an­ic­ally ad­vanced so­ci­ety. Com­mander Grier was over­re­act­ing to the threat, and Eri was her pawn. But did she have a choice?

  You’re go­ing to have to de­cide…

  Whether or not to warn them…

  That’s only a de­cision you can make for your­self…

  She had no idea her sis­ter was a closet rebel. All those pre­tend games they had played as kids sud­denly had new mean­ing. One ques­tion rose above the rest. How deep did Litus’s al­li­ances lie? For once, Eri was glad she wasn’t paired with someone like him, be­cause she wanted a part­ner who shared her dreams, someone who was able to open up and tell her how he felt.

  A burly man passed by, flick­ing his ID badge to open the arena portal. Eri stepped into a jungle. She reached out and her hand passed through a thicket of vines, feel­ing thin air. Holo­grams. De­signed to re­semble the en­vir­on­ment they headed into. A shiver ran up her spine.

  She moved to the cen­ter of the arena where a group of men and wo­men con­greg­ated. Some were lieu­ten­ants in train­ing, oth­ers spe­cial ops, and a few were the com­mander’s highly trained body­guards. All were built like they could wrestle a bull to the ground and eat its guts raw. She felt like a mouse cower­ing in their shad­ows.

  A whis­per hissed from the crowd of gi­ants. “What’s she do­ing here?”

  “She’s a lin­guist.” The other voice dripped with sar­casm.

  Eri turned to identify the speaker. A man with a buzz cut and bristles on his chin looked down at her like she was some an­noy­ing clean­ing droid. “Go­ing to talk to the ali­ens, huh?” He held up his gal­lium crys­tal void ray with large ionic cham­bers on either side, a weapon al­most as long as she was tall. “Here’s my me­dium of ne­go­ti­ation.”

  Every­one chuckled. Eri must have paled be­cause one wo­man with thick eye­brows taunted her. One small braid stuck out the top of her shaved head. “Don’t worry, we won’t let them hurt you.”

  “Enough, Mars.” Litus’s voice res­on­ated across the arena. He walked through a fern cluster to meet them. “We have a small team of ten and every­one’s here. Let’s get the show on the road.”

  The crowd quieted. Litus’s lead­er­ship skills im­pressed her. She’d never seen him in ac­tion be­fore. Wouldn’t Aquaria feel lucky with her pair­ing now?

  Litus waved his arm in an arc. Thatched tree huts littered the can­opy. The scout droid flew down from a branch, col­lect­ing samples from the jungle floor. “These are pic­tures shot from our satel­lite droid on Haven 6. Pic­tures taken be­fore this happened.” He poin­ted to a sec­tion of the jungle. An ar­row whizzed through the air and Eri ducked. The man be­hind her didn’t flinch as the shaft flew through his body and out the other side.

  Holo­grams.

  Em­bar­rass­ment flooded her and her cheeks burned. Someone laughed, but Litus’s glare stifled any fur­ther de­ri­sion. He raised an eye­brow at Eri. “Good in­stincts.”

  An­other ar­row fol­lowed, and a por­tion of the wall­screen fizzled out and went blank.

  Litus turned to the crowd. “The video in­put feed was dis­abled. That’s all the info we have.”

  The man with the buzz cut stepped for­ward. “Ar­rows. You’ve got to be kid­ding me.”

  “It does seem prim­it­ive, Tank. Still, you can never be too care­ful. That ar­row knocked out our scout in one hit. That’s why the com­mander is send­ing us first. Our mis­sion is to col­lect as much data on our new en­vir­on­ment, and on those who in­habit it, as pos­sible. Erid­ani Smith is our in­ter­preter, and every­one, and I mean every­one—” Litus glared at Tank. “Must listen to her.”

  Mars’s voice purred like a li­on­ess. “Why the tar­get prac­tice, chief?”

  Eri watched Litus’s re­ac­tion care­fully. Yes, why the hu­mong­ous laser guns?

  Litus shif­ted, bring­ing the gun down to his waist. “Like I said, we can never be too care­ful. We’re in­vad­ing their planet, tak­ing over their home. We don’t know how our vis­it­a­tion will be re­ceived. There’s a good pos­sib­il­ity we’ll have the same wel­come party as this un­for­tu­nate satel­lite droid.”

  Tak­ing over? Eri raised her eye­brows, siz­ing him up. Did he just give away an ele­ment of the plan? Or was he be­ing overly dra­matic to warn them of what the creatures might think?

  Litus held up his weapon. “Every­one’s laser is set for prac­tice mode, which means you are shoot­ing harm­less light. But try to take this as ser­i­ously as pos­sible. We wouldn’t want friendly fire once we landed, so let’s not shoot each other today.”

  No mat­ter what the mis­sion was, Eri ques­tioned hav­ing her own laser. Would a leader of state at­tend a meet­ing with a laser gun? No. Hav­ing a weapon might make her a tar­get.

  Rust­ling dis­turbed the leaves be­hind her and Eri whirled around. “What is it?”

  “A tar­ge
t.” Litus stepped over to her and offered her a hand laser. “I’ve already in­put the code.”

  She took the laser in both hands and the weight dragged her wrists down.

  Litus stood aside as a gray fig­ure dar­ted in and out of the fo­liage. “Tar­get any­thing that moves.”

  Her weapon buzzed, vi­brat­ing her fin­ger­tips and warm­ing the palms of her hands. Shots pinged around her, and she backed up against a hol­orock and cowered.

  Litus joined her, crouch­ing. “Eri, your weapon is set and ready to go.”

  The gray hu­manoids flit­ted by as the team fol­lowed them in a trail of fire­works. The smell of burned dust spiked her anxi­ety. “But I’ve never fired at any­thing be­fore.”

  “You’ve got to try.”

  “I can’t do it, Litus. I’m…frozen with fear.” She hoped she soun­ded con­vin­cing.

  Litus checked the sur­round­ing area be­fore turn­ing back to her. “Be­lieve in your­self, Eri. That’s the only way you’ll make any­thing hap­pen in your life.”

  Eri shif­ted from foot to foot, wish­ing she could turn into a holol­iz­ard and slither un­der­neath a hol­orock.

  A gray hu­manoid sprung from the ferns but Litus con­tin­ued, ob­li­vi­ous. “Or else you’re just cos­mic dust on the ring of a planet, wait­ing for grav­ity to pull you along the same old cir­cu­lar path.”

  Tank slid on his knees, fir­ing, but the hu­manoid zig­zagged against the chan­ging stream. As it neared, its face came into view, mak­ing Eri shiver. The holo­graphic im­age had no eyes or mouth, just a sheen of twi­light for a face.

  Is this what the ali­ens will look like? If so, could she bring her­self to even ut­ter a single word to them?

  As the battle raged, Eri thought Litus would raise his own laser and stop the ram­page, but he didn’t no­tice the stray op­pon­ent lunge in his dir­ec­tion. There was no time to warn him.

  Eri snapped her laser up and fired, the shot blast­ing her back­ward through the hol­orock. She slid on her back, feel­ing the gun pulse in her hands as it re­charged. The smell of singed elec­trical wires chok­ing her, she cringed and covered her face with her arms.

  When she gathered the cour­age to open her eyes, the gray hu­manoid lay on his back. Litus walked over to her, re­spect and as­ton­ish­ment shin­ing in his eyes.

  Even Tank shouted a hoot of sup­port. “Go, lin­guist.”

  Litus seemed to re­as­sess her as he offered his hand and pulled her up. “You have more spunk than you let on.”

  Chapter Four

  Quest for Knowledge

  Weaver trudged through the dense un­der­growth, fail­ure eat­ing away at his in­sides like poison. Swamp wa­ter sloshed into his boots, mak­ing his toes curl with a damp chill that spread up his legs. He shivered, and the fa­mil­iar feel­ing of in­feri­or­ity hovered over him. Too long he’d lived in its shadow.

  As he fol­lowed the battered army home, he re­played the battle. How did I fail? His bows had pen­et­rated his former vil­lage’s de­fenses, giv­ing the men the lead time needed to scale the wall. Noth­ing could beat the Death Stalker’s scope and aim.

  Ex­cept Striver. Once again his brother had out­shined him ten­fold. By felling the first three ropes, he’d weakened the pir­ates’ re­solve. Death by leech­ers was a nasty, pain­ful end, and Striver’s aim guar­an­teed some would fall. If only his men had pushed through, let­ting the first wave of ropes go down while other at­tack­ers sprang up. The Law­less claimed they ate fe­ro­city for lunch, yet they had the most spine­less weasel worm hearts he’d ever seen.

  He had to re­mind him­self the pir­ates’ short­sighted­ness was why he thought he could lead the Law­less, ma­nip­u­lat­ing them to his own ends. Only then would he feel power­ful. After he gained con­trol of the Law­less tribe, he’d show his vil­lage how they should have chosen him, not Striver, to lead.

  An un­set­tling snake of dis­com­fort slid across his shoulders. First he had to re­port to Jolt.

  People scur­ried from the tree huts, shout­ing to the sur­viv­ors as they passed. Weaver didn’t reply. They’d learn soon enough who’d died and how deeply they’d failed. These lands were ruled by a dic­tator, not a demo­cracy like the do-noth­ing Guard­i­ans and the weak-minded coun­cil. He re­por­ted to one man alone.

  The husk of a space­ship pro­truded from the ground just bey­ond the last cluster of fern huts. Cold, harsh metal cut through the soft leaves like a razorblade, re­mind­ing Weaver of the power of tech­no­logy.

  Two body­guards nod­ded as Weaver passed. Snipe, the younger man on the right, shif­ted his pred­at­ory eyes un­der heavy lids, look­ing as mean as a cornered swamp boar. Crusty, the older man on the left, cracked a sad half smile, as if Weaver paced to his death.

  Weaver stifled a shud­der. I can handle Jolt. He still needs me. Step­ping un­der­neath the per­petu­ally open hatch, he mustered his cour­age.

  Torches lit the in­side of the ship, cast­ing flick­er­ing light on con­trol screens long dead. The pu­trid scent of dank moss and rusty metal hung heavy in the air. Wa­ter dripped every­where, form­ing muddy puddles on the chrome floor.

  Jolt slumped in the cock­pit, gaz­ing through the cracked glass of the sight panel on a dead-end course to nowhere. He swiveled in the age-old cap­tain’s chair, the plastic crack­ing as he moved.

  The flick­er­ing torch­light il­lu­min­ated half his pock­marked face and tight­lipped frown. He ran his hands over a laser gun with photon cham­bers clogged with dirt. Hun­dreds of years ago, the gun had pulsed with en­ergy. Now it was an empty trophy, a rem­nant of a by­gone time.

  “Hu­mans were once a mighty su­per­power. We ruled Earth with our weapons of mass de­struc­tion, cre­at­ing grand wars and great, mighty lead­ers. I’ve heard the stor­ies passed down by my an­cest­ors. The same people who once flew this very ship. Now, thanks to your tech­no­hoard­ing friends, all we have left are sticks and stones. They sit on top of lost tech­no­logy, and they won’t let us ac­cess it, won’t let us pro­gress bey­ond our primal means.”

  Jolt turned so the red­dish light bathed his en­tire face. “Your weapons failed.” A scar above his fore­head twitched with his pulse, re­mind­ing Weaver of a weasel worm. His mud­died brown hair twis­ted up in spikes.

  Weaver bowed, gaz­ing at the scuffed chrome floor. “For now.”

  “You prom­ised me ac­cess to the S.P. Nautilus, and in­stead, we lost seven men.”

  Boy, the scouts ran quickly. Weaver had guessed word would reach Jolt be­fore he could ex­plain. He’d pre­pared for such a fight. He straightened, stand­ing tall enough that he could reach the dangling wires above him. “Your army is a bunch of cow­ards who scramble at the first sign of death.”

  Jolt lurched and lunged, shov­ing his face into Weaver’s. His lips quivered as his bit­ter breath fell on Weaver’s cheek. “No one in­sults me and lives.”

  Weaver didn’t flinch. He had to stand his ground, or Jolt would turn him into a pile of mush on the chrome floor. “It’s not an in­sult. It’s the truth.”

  Cold pricked Weaver’s skin. He glanced down. Jolt had snuck an ob­sidian blade against his gut, sli­cing into his shirt.

  “Give me one reason not to kill you right now.”

  Weaver’s gaze strayed to the blank con­trol screens. “Look at this ship. The cir­cuits are cor­rup­ted bey­ond re­pair. Only I know the ex­act co­ordin­ates of the one work­ing space­ship on Refuge, com­plete with data files on both the space pir­ates of Out­post Omega and the Guard­i­ans’ ad­vanced tech­no­logy from their home world. Only I can scratch the codes and mimic the claws of the Guard­i­ans to get you in.”

  “It does me no good on this side of the fence.” Jolt nar­rowed his eyes. “All this fail­ure has got me think­ing. Who’s to say you’re not a spy?”

  Weaver put both hands on his hips, jut­ting his thumbs through his belt loops.
“Noth­ing worth hav­ing is without risk.” He hated quot­ing his father, but the old man had been right about some things, even if he’d favored Striver over Weaver since birth.

  Jolt eased, slip­ping his blade into a side sheath. “Of that, you’re right. I’m giv­ing you one more chance to prove your­self. Mean­while, I have my eye on you. No ship, no place here in our lands. I can’t let you crawl back to your brother’s cheery little vil­lage. You know too much.”

  “I’d rather die than go back.”

  Jolt smirked. “So be it. But all in good time. I have an­other pro­ject for you.”

  “If it has to do with that scout droid you found last week, you can count me out. There’s no way I can get it run­ning again after your hunts­men skewered it. My ex­pert­ise is with bows, not tech­no­logy.”

  Jolt eyed him. Weaver cocked a brow. He had his ways of find­ing in­form­a­tion.

  But Weaver’s know­ledge of his secret didn’t seem to in­tim­id­ate Jolt. Some­thing more prof­it­able than a scout droid stirred in the depths of his dark eyes. He savored his words. “No, it’s some­thing much, much bet­ter.”

  …

  The scent of smoked boar filled the air. Wooden flutes trilled, ac­com­pan­ied by the heavy beat of leather drums. Striver stood apart from the fest­iv­it­ies, watch­ing Guard­i­ans thread strings of flowers through the trees in the twi­light.

  “You don’t care to cel­eb­rate?” Phoenix ap­peared from the branches above him, prov­ing to Striver that he could never truly be left alone. Al­though some­times he re­sen­ted the con­stant at­ten­tion lead­er­ship thrust upon him, to­night the Guard­i­ans’ pres­ence soothed him. At least someone else no­ticed the dis­cord slowly twin­ing through their every­day lives.

  Striver leaned against a wood rail­ing. “What’s to cel­eb­rate? The at­tack was too close this time. One of our men died.”